Community Specific Archive gathers a series of photographs by Paola Di Bello and a video installation by Valerio Rocco Orlando, created through the artists' engagement with the CSAC archive and the students from the Bachelor's program in Contemporary Communication and Media for Creative Industries at the University of Parma. The project Community Specific Archive was selected as part of the public notice PAC2022-2023 - Plan for Contemporary Art, promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.
Through a series of workshops, the artists developed research based on self-awareness and the sharing of knowledge, enhancing the collection of the Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione of the University of Parma as the catalyst for their work. The outcome is a new body of work focused on the territorial identity, reflecting the needs and urgencies of the local community.
For this occasion, Paola Di Bello and Valerio Rocco Orlando created a series of works consisting of both still images and moving images, resonating with the archive, the university, and the city of Parma. The work expresses the synthesis of a participatory process, resulting in photographic production made up of collages, the outcome of a visual dialogue with students, drawing from the photographic section used as raw material. The archive emerges and returns revitalized and contemporized. In parallel, the video installation presents the formal synthesis of a pedagogical methodology based on the practice of active listening, non-creative writing exercises, and dramaturgical and audiovisual reworking as a collective action.